Changes in the public perceptions of poverty during an unprecedented case of unusual strains in the state of Minnesota: the short-term effect of COVID-19

Abstract Many experts argue that unusual social and economic strains have an effect on the popular beliefs about poverty. Public perceptions of poverty are relevant because they are assumed to have a significant effect on the legitimacy and viability of welfare policies, and they influence what people expect from the poor. This paper examines how poverty-related beliefs were articulated by respondents in St. Louis County, Minnesota, before and during the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using cultural consensus theory and systematic data collection, the analysis compares patterns of shared beliefs across two independent cross-sectional samples collected in early and mid-2020 using identical instruments. Minnesota provides a distinctive context for this investigation due to its high overall living standards combined with pronounced racial disparities. The results indicate that the configuration and salience of poverty-related beliefs differed between the two survey waves. In the second survey, structural and fatalistic explanations were more prominent, while individualistic explanations were less salient. In addition, new poverty-related items—such as COVID-19, lack of childcare, and social isolation—emerged, and minority status appeared more frequently as both a poverty-related item and an attribution. Given the repeated cross-sectional design and small sample sizes, these findings should be interpreted as exploratory patterns rather than evidence of population-level change or causal effects. The study contributes to the literature on lay perceptions of poverty by illustrating how poverty-related belief systems may be articulated differently under conditions of acute social and economic strain. It provides a foundation for future research using longitudinal or larger-scale designs to assess whether such patterns persist beyond the initial phase of the pandemic.